Simulation of Extrusion of Thermoplastic Binder in Additive Manufacturing Process

In the presentwork, extrusion of a thermoplastic binder through the nozzle in the Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) process is simulated with Finite Element Analysis. In the literature, a discussion on HDPE as a thermoplastic binder is rarely found. Therefore, a study on extrusion of HDPE is required. As part of the study, extrusion of HDPE as a thermoplastic binder through a nozzle and heat-break assembly was simulated in this paper. A Multiphysics Modelling of the extrusion process was set up with the heat transfer and laminar flow solvers. It was observed that the binder reaches its melting point in 600 s. The study also establishes a relationship between different process parameters like temperature, pressure and extrusion velocity.